San Diego Zoo

How Do You Bring the Backup Act to Center Stage?

The Task

To disrupt perceptions about what to expect from an African zoo exhibit and showcase the true diversity of Africa.

Key Art, Outdoor and Wild Postings

Brutal SimplicityOf Thought

Target Insight

When one thinks of Africa, often only the big 5 animals come to mind.

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Brand Insight

The new Africa Rocks exhibit at the San Diego Zoo will introduce visitors to the unparalleled diversity and surprises of this vibrant continent.

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Powerful Truth

Africa Rocks in so many ways.

The Idea

With a name like Africa Rocks, it was only natural to build a campaign around music. Celebrating the San Diego Zoo’s biggest expansion ever, our full blown, rock star themed campaign highlighted the incredible collection of new animals coming to San Diego.

The exhibit inspired us to illustrate the diversity of habitats & animals through familiar rock themes and iconography that we all grew up with. Implementing a different style for each media and habitat, the “Rock” theme was the life blood of the creative approach. But every piece of creative felt both fresh and a little familiar at the same time, appealing to the San Diego Zoo’s wide audience.

Key Art and Outdoor

The Work

Africa Rocks would be one of the most ambitious creative projects we and the Zoo had ever undertaken. Bespoke gig artwork would promote each of our six habitats like a stadium tour – created in collaboration with the infamous California artist Scrojo.

We enlisted the help of Stranger Things artist and visionary Kyle Lambert to develop our core campaign key art. This work celebrated the unique personality of the full exhibit in key OOH environments.

Finally we partnered with renowned animation house Gentleman Scholar to develop our hero AV content. Inspired by the visual artistry of MTV in the 1980s and 90s, we created a series of AV executions that were channel neutral. Fans hunted down the different themed videos from social to TV, waiting for the next habitat to drop in our Africa Rocks story.